


The Eagle and the Snake

by jedia_lo21



Category: Hannibal (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Growing Up Together, M/M, Rating May Change, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedia_lo21/pseuds/jedia_lo21
Summary: Will figured he'd be fixing boat motors with his dad for the rest of his life. And then the letter came, and a pair of captivating maroon eyes...
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse any grammar/spelling mistakes!

He didn’t think much of it when the letter first arrived. Crème-colored, thick and velvet under his fingertips, and embossed with a thick, red wax stamp, it was the most gaudy thing in their shared dilapidated shack. The cleanest thing, also. Until his father’s oil-stained fingers tugged the envelope from his grasp to hold up to the light.

“Look ‘ere, boy. Some fancy ass. . .  _ prep _ ’tory school wants to take you away from me,” Beau spat, glaring down at him, steel-grey eyes narrowed under bushy brows. “And our money too. School like this ain’t come without no price.”

Will nodded, casting a longing look at the envelope. His fingers itched.

He wanted to take the envelope from his father’s hands, smooth out the wrinkles. He wanted to break the seal, listen to the satisfying pop as wax like blood snapped clean from the velvet paper. 

He wanted to reach inside and draw the pages out one by one and see his name printed on sheets that cost more per page than the 50-sheet legal pad Beau had snagged from the office at the boat shop down the road and handed him. The ugly yellow pages so indigent, so maladroit. The kids in his school weren’t much better off than he and his father, but at least their bags carried spiral notebooks with cartoon characters, animals, and logos on the covers.

This letter was something else. Something more.

“Go on, boy. I know you got homework.”

Will nodded and headed into the living room, squeezing his eyes against the sound of expensive paper tearing down the middle.

***

Later in the night, when Beau’s snoring shattered the silence of their shack and the crickets outside, Will slipped from his bed and padded back into the kitchen. Moonlight bled through the slats of the broken blinds, casting eerie light on the old tile floor.

Will bit his lip as he tugged the plastic swing-top container out from under the sink. He wrinkled his nose as he swept aside the leftover scrapings from dinner, empty beer cans, and junk mail catalogues with missing squares ripped out where Beau had found deals on bread, meat, and tools.

The envelope had been neatly ripped into quarters,  crème paper stained bright orange with Cholula. He laid the pieces out on a spot of moonlight, piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Will Graham sat criss cross on the floor, stroking the green ink letters embossed on the envelope:

_ Mr. W Graham _

350 Porter Avenue

Biloxi, Mississippi, 39530

***

“Can I help you, young man?” The stern voice sounded behind him, laced with a tenor of suspicion.

Will turned in the wooden seat, eyes lowered. “Sorry, ma’am. I was just doing some research is all.”

“School’s out for the summer,” the librarian’s heels sounded like the blows of a hammer as she tapped her foot impatiently.

Will clenched his hands, irritation pricking up his spine. Even without raising his eyes to meet hers, he could feel her skepticism, muted but still heavy enough to blanket his mind. “Yes, ma’am. I’m researching about a school, but it seems like it doesn’t exist.”

“It seems like it doesn’t  _ exist _ ?” The saccharine tone of her voice was like poison, bleeding into his mind with the ache of her annoyance, her judgement. A dirty, skinny child using the library computers to research a  _ school _ didn’t add up in her mind. And the kids these days, obsessed with drugs and alcohol and porn. . .

“It’s called Hogwarts, but I can’t find any books about it, and there’s nothing online,” Will mumbled, cheeks heating.

His eyes traced the scuff marks on her baby blue heels. Nobody in Biloxi was really rich, but there was enough of an income difference to separate the people that lived hand-to-mouth from those able to afford a pair of nice shoes here and there from the shops across the interstate highway, where slum districts and boatyards gave way to golf courses and mansions with private docks on the gulf.

“Young man. Didn’t your daddy ever teach you any manners when talking to a lady? Look me in the eyes when I’m talking to you.”

And like a siren call, his head snapped up on command. Like a trained, loyal dog hiis eyes locked on her blue ones. Blue eyes sporting the beginnings of cataracts, milky and strained. . . 

In the depths of his mind, something began a steady ticking. The rhythm echoed in his ears, pounded behind his eyelids.

_ The librarian wore these shoes a lot. Not everyday. Not enough to raise suspicion. The truth was, her income was small, barely enough to cover rent and groceries. These shoes had cost a small fortune, but the other old women in her neighborhood were happily married with comfortable retirement money. And while their pearls were fake and their dresses cheap, they were the darling belles of the area. _

_ Her hands, when she looked at them, surprised her with their weathering and hurt her when she turned ( _ always did she turn _ ) to look down at her ring finger. There was no line there to indicate a ring had sat nestled in place. Nothing to show for a long marriage. She had always been alone. All her life. _

_ She was the youngest in a large family. The one always looked over. The one who grew up wearing old, used clothes passed down from sisters who had been gifted new things, nice things all their lives. Even when they all left her behind in high school and then college and then life outside in the real world, she had never been given anything new. _

_ These baby blue heels were new and they were solely hers. Pastel and soft like how she had always imagined what her room would have looked like if she had grown up an only child. Pastel pinks and yellows and blues, soft like the love of a mother to her beautiful, baby girl. Dolls and velveteen rabbits and comfortable frocks and button-up cardigans. _

Will squeezed his eyes shut and stood up abruptly, knocking the wooden chair over. He closed the internet browser tabs without a word and stalked around the old, stern woman.

“Hey, young man-” she started, reaching out for his arm. He dodged her hand and continued on, avoiding her milky eyes hardened by a life of covet drilling into his back.

When he turned back around, she was still standing by the computer, arm stretched out like she was still reaching for his arm, and the chair was upright again.

***

“You remember, boy, you’re gettin’ up early to help out at the yard tomorrow,” Beau Graham rumbled from the recliner. His eyes were glazed over, wet from staring at the TV so long, tracing the paths of baseballs, swinging bats, and players kicking up clouds of dust. In his hands, a can of beer and the tv remote.

Will hummed in answer, flipping the page over in the library book.

“I don’ raise no lazy son.”

“Yes sir,” Will murmured, rubbing the pages between his fingers. They were thin and wrinkled with age. Not as thick and expensive as that envelope had been. The one they received nearly two weeks ago, right before the end of school.

“They’ve got Amish quacks now doin’ the mail,” Beau continued, sighing as the commercials began. “Saw one on our porch t’day with one a their letters.”

Will’s head shot up. “Did you talk to him?” He ventured carefully, closing the library book.

“Hell no. And I don’t want you talkin’ to them neither, you hear? You comin’ to the docks with me in the mornin’. I don’ want my kid endin’ up on no missing kid poster.”

Will lowered his gaze, absentmindedly tracing the whale on the cover of his book. “Yes, daddy.”

Beau grunted and settled back into the seat. Will watched him for a few seconds, closing his mind against the current of emotions Beau gave off whenever he was quiet. Living with his father so much, it was hard not to peer inside his daddy’s mind and listen to Beau’s quiet grief at his son’s abnormality.

Then he flipped the book back open to the page he had been reading:

_ "-know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. . .”  _

***

The boat yards had never really been a chore for Will. Most kids his age never left the house in the summer, glued to the latest video game or cartoon on the screen. But the yards were quiet, full of looming, empty crafts so peculiar looking when moored on gravel rather than sea.

And there were few people walking around to trip his mind. Just Will, Beau, and half a dozen other laborers who rarely talked to one another.

Best of all, there were stray dogs everywhere, scavenging for scraps. Will liked to coax them out from under speeder boats and sailboats and run his hands over brindle fur and knobby spines. They would pad behind him throughout the day, maintaining a careful distance between him and his father as Will dug around in gravel and rocks and listened patiently to his daddy’s lectures about fixing motors.

Still, by the end of the day, his body was sore from climbing over boats and rocks and helping Beau take apart and put motors back together. There was grit under his fingernails and dirt and oil smudged on his cheeks and shirt. Beau had promised to pull out a couple freezer pops for them to sit out on the porch with before dinner. A good night.

But as he and his daddy neared the front door, they caught sight of a man waiting there, craning his head as he peered through the screen door and the glass on the front door into their house. He was strange-looking. Dressed in a long coat like a cape, multi-colored, and etched with silver filigree at the edges.

Nobody dressed like that in Biloxi.

Beau gripped his arm suddenly. Will jerked to a stop, looking up at him in surprise. Waves of anger crashed over him. Will winced, hunching over, fighting against the ticking from deep in his mind waking like a dragon from a long, heavy slumber.

The strange man turned away from their door, and as soon as his eyes lit upon Will and Beau, he beamed. “You must be Beau Graham,” the man shuffled quickly down the stairs. As he drew closer, Will was tugged closer to his father’s side. “And you,” the man smiled, bright eyes on him, “must be the infamous William Graham.”

Infamous?

Will turned to his father, bewildered.

“I don’ know who you are, but you better get on off my property,” Beau snapped. Will imagined his father like one of those scrappier dogs at the boat yard, hackles raised, teeth bared in warning.

The man looked surprised, as if he had never considered before that his presence at their house could be unwanted. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir. Did you not get the letter we sent in advance? Surely you must have. Muggle post must not be very reliable.”

The man was crazy then, although his clothes were very fancy and expensive-looking for someone who might have escaped from an asylum. Will mused on the idea that he had gotten his ostentatious accent from a TV program.

“My son don’ need to go to no money school. After summer, he’s goin’ back to Greenridge. Now you can leave. There’s nothin’ else to say about it.”

The man fiddled with his long sleeves, slender fingers disappearing in and out of the cloth. Will stared, mesmerized at the shifting fabric that seemed to transition from green to brown to blue as it rippled. “Hogwarts is a very fine school, and we do not ask for. . .  _ money _ in exchange for attendance.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed. “You a scammer, then? A salesman? We’re not interested. Now get on out of here before I call the authori _ ties _ .”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I have been sent here to walk you and your fine son through his Hogwarts letter of acceptance. I assume you have some questions about the contents, seeing as you are Muggle-born. I am here to help.”

“We don’ need no  _ help _ from the likes of you.”

Will lifted his head, eyes seeking the face of the man standing across from them. He felt the stirrings of something old in the aura around the strange figure. The rhythmic ticking in the back of his mind started up again, echoing louder and louder as it drummed behind his eyes. It swung in his conscious, clearing away all his thoughts and opening his mind up to accept whatever the stranger before him had to offer.

_ He was confused. Nervous, really. He had been given this assignment by his higher-ups as a chance to prove himself. He had been judged all his life for his interests and choice of study. He had never quite learned how to fit in with his peers, but he most desired to get a job done well. _

_ Now here he was, floundering on a test that he had been confident about passing. All the books had lied to him. All the stories hadn’t mentioned how difficult this might be. That these people here, in a world so strange and unlike his own, were so hardened by their lack of perception. Their lack of judgment. What was he now to do? _

Will startled, blinking as he returned back to himself. He shuddered against the remnants of the strange man’s mind that still clung to him. The process was like shedding off layers of winter clothes. He felt the echoing whispers of nervousness and self-consciousness still reverberating through him. His hands trembled from the phantom worry.

When Will finally looked up again, he found the stranger watching him curiously, eyes narrowed slightly like he was piecing something together. “What did you do just now?” The man asked him, voice gentle in a way that surprised Will. He had never really been spoken to like that before. Like someone was genuinely interested in what he had to say. Especially when it was about his. . . abnormality.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Will said hesitantly. “I can’t really control it. I-”

“-don’ have to explain anythin’ to you,” Beau broke in, shoving Will behind him. “We’ve asked you many times now to leave.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. He took a deep breath like he was summoning up the courage to say something. The stranger turned to Will. “I just have one question for you. Hear me out for just a moment. Have you ever experienced anything peculiar when growing up? Things you just couldn’t explain?”

Will peeked around his father.

“Anything that happened when you experienced strong emotions like anger, sadness, or fear?”

Will squeezed his hands, shocked. He remembered one trip to Walmart with his daddy when he was five. He had wandered off to look at the shelves of toys while Beau was in the produce section, taking too long inspecting some of the fruit and vegetables. An older man had approached him, smiling widely.

Will had felt the darkness in his mind brushing over him, and had shied away from the  _ want _ ,  _ rage _ , sick  _ need _ stretching claws for him. He had squeezed his eyes shut, cowering against one of the toy shelves. In the next moment, a deafening crash had sounded. Will opened his eyes and found himself crouched down, hands locked over his head to protect himself.

The entire aisle of shelves had fallen apart and collapsed. Thousands of lego blocks and toy cars and puzzles were scattered all around him. The metal shelves he had been leaning against had crossed over him, forming a protective shelter against the rest of the falling debris. The man who had tried to take him was buried in shelves and toys.

Nobody had really known what had happened. The shelves weren’t old and hadn’t been over weighted. Perhaps they had been put together improperly. Either way, a boy had been spared a worse fate at the hands of a serial kidnapper who had evaded capture by authorities for years.

As Will stared into the stranger’s hazel eyes, he remembered more incidents.

At a public fountain when he was seven, a group of local boys had started picking on him. Shoving him around, taunting him, reveling in their ability to bully Will under their parents’ noses. Enraged and irritated, Will had squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth against their next blow when the park around them erupted in screams.

Will had opened his eyes in confusion as parents sprinted over, pulling their children out of the fountain where they had fallen in. The boys swore Will had pushed them in, but nobody could prove he did it. How could one little boy throw a group of older kids into a fountain at the same time?

When he was ten, Will saw his daddy cry for the first and only time in his life. They lived in New Orleans and Beau was still fixing boat motors out there. Will had stayed up late into the night reading, and crept out of his room to get a glass of water when he spied Beau at the table, head buried in his hands, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

A yellow sheet of paper, crumbled as if it had been clenched between tight fists, glared out at him from the doorway: EVICTION NOTICE.

They had been struggling with money. Fixing things paid, but not well enough it seemed.

Will had folded himself in the doorway and watched his daddy cry. Waves of anger, fear, and agony had wafted over him from the kitchen until Will was sobbing silently, nails digging into the wood of the doorway until his fingers split and bled. He stayed there all night, numb from a cycle of unending sorrow he had absorbed from Beau until his daddy fell asleep at the table.

Will closed his eyes against the sight of his broken daddy, and when he opened them, the yellow notice was gone, the scratches on the doorpost had smoothed over, and the skin around his nails had healed.

They lived in that ramshackle house for six more months before moving to Biloxi. Not once in that time did another notice arrive or people come to kick them out.

The stranger standing before them took notice of Will’s growing interest. “Perhaps even some inherent gifts have manifested. Can you charm people? Get them to do something for you without really trying? Or perhaps you have predicted some things in your dreams? Perhaps you are in tune with animals. They trust you easily.”

At that, Will’s head shot up and the stranger smiled.

The dogs in the boat yard had always been easy to gain the trust of. Feral cats slunk between his legs. He had never been bitten or stung by spiders, wasps, or bees. . .

“Who are you?” Will ventured, stepping away from his father’s side.

The man got down on one knee. “My name is Gideon Hornbeam. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Will shook his hand, perplexed at the man’s name and the sudden rush of excitement radiating out of him. “Why are you here?”

“Well, to tell you about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, of course,” the man looked delighted at their clasped hands.

_ “What?” _ Will tried to step away. Perhaps the man really was insane. No one playing a prank like this had a mind so unfettered of dark thoughts and desires and manipulations. Whoever this Gideon was, he certainly seemed to be convinced by his fantasies.

“Yes. You have been accepted by one of the finest magical schools in the world. Congratulations, Mr. Graham. You’ll be a fine wizard someday.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: very brief mention of suicide

“I don’ know how we’re gonna afford all this,” Beau mumbled, flipping through the various pages Gideon had brought with him. Will found it a very paradoxical sight. Pages concerning the magic world, written on the same expensive crème sheets as the envelope, were scattered over the cheap table his daddy got for a deal on Craigslist. A social experiment in economics laid out across weathered pine. 

“The wonderful thing is, you don’t have to,” Gideon smiled and shifted his robes as he took a seat across from Beau. There were only the two chairs, so Will stood behind his daddy, peering over his shoulder at the various pages. “Muggle-born wizards have their books and equipment paid for by the Ministry of Magic.”

“Ministry of Magic?” Will echoed quietly.

“The government of our world. Responsible for keeping us hidden from Muggles, making laws, and paying for your school.”

“So where do they get the money to pay our tuition,” Will asked skeptically. It seemed too good to be true. Although, the suspicion had the same edge as his daddy’s words did whenever he pointed out things in the world that were too good to be true. And Beau was still reeling with emotion. Will dug his nails into his palms, focusing on the soft drumming in the back of his mind, wondering if he had locked into his daddy’s emotions unawares.

“You’re very perceptive,” Gideon grinned. “Much of Hogwarts' funding comes from generous donations from old alumni and. . . well-off wizard families. The Ministry also offers a financial aid package exclusively for Muggle-born. They’ll cover the cost of your books, robes, and other miscellaneous requirements for school.”

“An’ the catch?” Beau grumbled, shoving the papers across the table.

“Uh, no catch,” Gideon seemed to flounder again at the sudden hostility.

Even Will watched him silently from the table, eyes piercing. There could never be a world like that, so perfect in economy, so flawless in social structure. How could a magical place like this one have possibly achieved what an era of empires could not? Did affliction give way to content? Did prosperity champ at the bit of catastrophe, wailing on the greed of people that strove to better themselves?

Surely there was some anarchy Gideon didn't want to tell them about. Surely someone in the magical world had not been content with ‘just enough.’

_ Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week? _

“As long as William here remains a student,” Gideon continued, “they will offer 100 galleons per year to cover everything.”

“Galleons? Some goddamn Yankee coin?” Will winced at his father’s tone. He didn’t need the ticking in the back of his mind to pick up that his father was at his wit’s end. That didn’t stop it from reverberating through his skull, pounding behind his eyelids until it flooded his body, his mind, and his thoughts.

_ Beau was scared. Will was blood. Will was his. Had been for the past 11 years since his wife died. Postpartum depression had left her swinging by the neck over the stairs in their Louisiana cottage. _

_ He had always figured Will would be his for another 8 years, and when he finally got tired of his daddy, he would grow up to be something great. Move out of the slums and become what Beau had never got around to figuring out for himself. _

_ Now he would be taken. Shuffled off to a world no one even knew about. He would grow up and forget his daddy, forget his blood, and the mean thing inside them both that kept them together. And it was something he hadn’t been able to control. Will’s blood had. . .  _ magically _ become different. Other. _

_ And Beau was alone once again. _

Will blinked back tears and rested his cheek on the top of his daddy’s head. He breathed in the familiar scent of motor oil, cigarette smoke, and whisky. This was familiar. This was Friday nights at the boat yards, legs dangling into winter water so cold it made his toes numb. The scent of crawfish and gumbo wafting over the air from the kitchens blocks away. Beau steadily drinking whiskey out of a mason jar that he used so often the letters on the front had weathered away into smooth glass. On those nights, his daddy talked, spun stories about his life as a boy leading with a fist and a black eye into every decision of his life until he met Will’s mother and then was saddled with him.

Those were the Friday nights when Beau’s desires chilled him more than the water did and Will realized that he had never been quite normal enough for even his daddy to understand.

The scent burned his nostrils, searing Beau into his sinuses. His daddy’s greying hair grazed his cheek, soft like rose petals buoyed on the surface of cream. Will rarely showed affection this way. Looking at people was difficult. Touching them was something close to impossible. His abnormality swung like a compass, something chaotic and terrifying. Perhaps if he fell too far into the windows of someone’s soul, he would lose himself forever.

Or perhaps there had never been Will Graham. Just an amalgam of borrowed personalities, an ugly mosaic pieced together by the darkest parts of whoever he had met in his life. 

Beau reached up, squeezing Will’s fingers gratefully.

Gideon was still speaking. “Wizard currency is different from Muggle coinage. Rest assured that the funds the Ministry will provide will cover more than enough for William to finish out the year.”

It wasn’t the reluctance of not having enough money that burned like poison in Beau’s heart. It was the thought of the handout that pierced the pride budding up his chest. Will hid the smile in his father’s hair. At least there would be one less mouth to feed or worry about. With Will taken care of for a year, Beau could focus on work. Make ends meet. Enjoy Biloxi without the burden of a son who saw too much.

“How will this work?” Will asked politely, ignoring his daddy’s stiffening spine. Beau was afraid that this all wasn’t real. That they’d wake in the morning to find it was a fever dream. When people got their hopes up, the disappointment was enough to topple all their bridges. And if you didn’t build enough, there’d be nothing left at the end of all that dismay.

“We can apply for aid tonight, and when I hear confirmation from the Ministry, I will take you to get your school things. Diagon Alley is a far jump from here, but it is most assuredly the best place to get your things. Before the year begins, I will take you to the platform where the train for Hogwarts passes through.”

“So it’s done then. My boy gets no say in all this?” Beau clenched his fists on the table.

Will squeezed the collar of his daddy's plaid shirt. He could see the sweat beading along Beau’s graying curls, betraying his silent agony. And with his abnormality, Will could see beyond the nervous twitches of his daddy's palms and the drumming pulse in his neck and the tangible thing in the air that might have smelled like tension, if tension could have a scent: electricity and smoke and hardened metal.

Beau was afraid. And because he was afraid, he was desperate to hold onto everything that was familiar.

If Will stayed, he would grow up like his daddy. Comfortable in the way that older men are in the South, with lands to separate the worst of society from the worst of themselves and drown in honest work where bleeding and sweating mixes into the veins of the earth. Everyday the same routine, unbroken by the thrumming heart in the hollow bone cavity of society. People are like flightless birds, and in a cage as gilded as the one that promises novelty, they are quick to falter.

But in the South, Beau is safe. And Will is safe. And life will be safe.

And utterly lifeless.

“Daddy, it’s ok. I-I want to do this,” Will stepped away from him, scooping up the thick pages. He remembered the itching he had felt on the kitchen floor so many nights ago. The quiet need thrumming through his blood. As if something was calling for him. This felt like the right choice.

His fingers smoothed over the green ink like the words were raised and tangible.

_ Dear Mr William Graham, _

_ We are pleased to inform you. . .  _

“You saw a magic trick, boy,” Beau despaired. But even as his daddy said it, Will could feel the truth light a flame in both of them. No trick from even the brightest and most cunning street magician could do what Gideon had shown them. There was no fishing line, smoke machine, light show, or sleight-of-hand at play here.

Will stared into his daddy’s eyes, the pair that matched his own exactly. Like looking at a reflection of himself in a mirror. The windows of his daddy’s mind were the same as his own, which was why it was so effortless to slip into those thoughts, put those emotions on like an old, comfortable coat.

Beau sighed and reached for the pages Gideon brought to sign.

***

“This is a goddamn fool’s dream,” Beau snapped, steel eyes scanning the wall of brick before them. Gideon smiled patiently and stepped up to the wall, tracing his fingertips over the brick like he was searching for something.

For all the tales Gideon had spun about the magical capabilities of his world, Will and Beau had been transported here through purely human means. The plane ticket had arrived in the mail out of the blue, its presence the most conventional thing that had happened all summer. Neither of the Louisiana-born-and-raised father and son had passports, but it hadn’t seemed to matter when they hit customs.

The agents had taken one look at their tickets and let them pass through, eyes glazed over, and backs ramrod straight. Like pillars in a river. It was almost eerie how doll-like they seemed to look. Like something had invaded their minds and left them blank, plastic, and nothing.

Will shivered against the thought and watched as Gideon drew something from out of his eccentrically long sleeves, and used it to tap a pattern on the brick. Beau snorted, but Will could feel his agitation, a portentous wave that left Will’s heart pounding in his throat. One wrong move and his daddy would probably be left foaming at the mouth, eyes dilated and unresponsive, overwhelmed by it all.

_Why is a raven like a writing-desk_ , Will mused.

He gripped his daddy’s elbow as a deep rumble echoed around them.

The bricks were quivering in the wall.

All at once, they began shifting. Like a 3D block puzzle, they flipped over, sliding in and out of opening spaces as each clacked and gave way for another to take its place, unveiling a space before them that grew wider and wider.

Beau swallowed noisily next to him. “Well? We don’ got all day.”

Gideon grinned, and Will bit his lip to hide his own answering smile. This was the first time the other man seemed confident in his element. Perhaps because he was.

Will squinted against the bright daylight ahead, warmer than anything he had ever seen before.

“Don’t tell me I’ve scared you off now,” Gideon beckoned widely down the street where Will could already see a milling crowd shuffling before a line of shops.

He glanced down the alleyway behind him, the one Gideon had taken them through. It had seemed so enchanting walking the cobblestones of London. The beautiful squat shops and looming windows of a city so unlike the places he had grown up in. New Orleans had been big, but Will had never really explored enough of it to think of a larger world outside his home and the boat yards.

Like marble gleams in the sun encroaching from the East, the city sprawled out before him beckoned. One last chance to take the hand of familiarity.

He could forget Gideon and the envelope and the promise of a perfect world. He could go back to his daddy, because it was something Beau wanted.

The two of them, the meanest of society, sprawled out in a graying bay, losing time through clinking glasses and boats pulling out of the harbor.

Will turned back, catching sight of the world before him. The one that promised an experience beyond imagination. His heart burned suddenly, chest aching as if it knew there was something ancient and familiar there. He looked to Gideon and found the man standing just past the brick line, beaming.

He was always beaming.

Will nodded, gripped his daddy’s hand tight, and stepped over the threshold of uncertainty.

***

Diagon Alley was unlike any place he had ever seen before. Hundreds of witches and wizards were walking the streets, entering and exiting shops, and manning various market stalls. There was so much noise as they shouted prices for Dragon Liver and collapsible cauldrons, quills and bat spleens, potion bottles and brass telescopes.

People were dressed in emerald green, amethyst, brown, royal blue, and black robes that looked softer than velvet. Some cleared paths of their own down the crowded street with pointed hats that seemed almost paradoxically out of place in such an enchanting world. The fashion seemed so simple, so overdone in Will’s eyes. Like this was all still a joke and the neighborhood kids had donned costumes from those party stores that pop up in empty storefronts across America before Halloween.

And yet, these people carried strange clippings of flowers and plants, cages with owls, cauldrons filled with phials and scales, broomsticks, and baskets of baubles he had no names for.

Will hunched next to his daddy, shying away from all the chaos and the minds of the people around him as they passed by. They were all so determined and focused, moving from one stall and shop to another while their emotions fluttered about, like nervous birds occupied with things that didn’t make  _ sense  _ to him.

One man clipped Will’s arm with his shoulder as he passed and he shuddered at the contact, at the echoing tendrils of a mind that needed to get somewhere on time.

_ He was a father of a large family, and all but one were attending Hogwarts. There was a never-ending list of things to get, because the school never deigned to make things easy for anyone who didn’t work as a higher up, controlling the lives of the people below that they squashed beneath their boot heels. _

_ Those wizards working within walls of marble would never have to think about how it felt to watch a young daughter grow up knowing she would never be anything great- _

Will snapped away from the depressing thoughts and imagined that the streets around them, lit by hundreds of flaming sconces, seemed darker now and less magical. It was the lot of people in any world to suffer the slings and arrows of communal misfortune. Perhaps Will would end up like that. His daddy was wrong on the days he felt sorry for himself enough for Will to be helpless at fighting the attention. Because at this rate, Will wouldn’t grow up to be anything great either.

“William?” Gideon’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Will straightened in anticipation, shuddering away from the expectation travelling on the air in waves. 

He locked his eyes on the man’s cheek, unable to bring himself to look into those eyes so filled with pity  _ that a measly Muggle-born was so human and unassuming that it really was a question whether or not the Headmaster had been in his right mind when he— _

“Boy, I know I didn’ raise you to be no impolite son,” Beau’s voice tugged him away from the Wizard’s mind. Will blinked and squeezed the fabric of his daddy’s coat.

“Yes, sir.” He turned to Gideon, hesitating a bit as he met the hazel eyes across from him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Gideon gave him a faint smile and saved him the trouble.

“I was just about to ask if you wanted to get fitted for your uniform. If we wait too long, there will be a line of you children down the road waiting to be measured.”

Will summoned a polite smile and a nod and tugged his daddy along with him as they headed across the cobblestone road toward a modest, gray shop sporting the name: Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions.

Gideon and Beau waited outside as he stepped inside the dusty shop, marveling at the many black and brown robes stacked in neat squares and stretching from floor to ceiling all along the back wall. Beautiful silver robes, multi-colored cloaks, and hulking shawls made of fur clung to wire mannequin figures posed neatly throughout the room. Along the side walls, plain robes of all colors were hung in never-ending lines.

Will stood awkwardly in the center of the room, wondering who he was supposed to talk to about the robes. Gideon had handed him the school supplies list, and he scanned the green letters helplessly, wondering if they’d shift at all and change in order to tell him what to do now:

**Uniform**

First years will require:

  1. _Three sets of plain work robes_ (black)
  2. _One plain pointed hat_ (black) _for day wear_
  3. _One pair of protective gloves_ (dragon hide or similar)
  4. _One winter cloak_ (black, silver fastenings)



Will turned for the shop door, wondering if he could get Gideon to talk to Madam Malkin himself, and promptly tripped over his shoes and slammed into someone just stepping inside. They both tumbled to the floor, kicking up a small plume of dust.

Will shot to his feet, mumbling apologies. 

His eyes, without his consent, lifted to meet a pair of cold maroon ones.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m sorry,” Will repeated dumbly, still caught by the gleaming eyes of the boy he had knocked to the grimy floor. He noticed the other’s dress too late: thick, expensive-looking robes with gleaming silver buttons stretching down from the collar down to the ankle. The cuff of a crisp white shirt was tucked beneath the robe. And now there were spots of dust on the otherwise impeccable fabric.

The boy looked untouchable. The kind of kid from Biloxi whose parents owned the mansion with a strip of private dock in the gulf. The ones who owned the summer vacation home on the other side of the Interstate and spent the rest of the year in a chaotic city like L.A. or Chicago.

Or none of those kids. Something entirely other. No one like this could be found in Mississippi. . . or America.

The boy’s eyes darkened as he stared back. They were like garnets gleaming with predatory light in the eyes of a jeweled snake. Cold. Premonitory.

_Hell is empty. All the devils are here._

Will found himself wanting to reach out and smooth his palm across the boy’s cheek, absorb the paleness of his skin, if only to exchange some of his warmth. The boy was like an ink painting. Water had spread his pigment out, but it hadn’t provided color. Except for the red of his eyes.

“Watch where you’re going,” The boy suddenly said. Will blinked in surprise. There was no edge to the words. No rage or irritation. He had simply stated it like a fact. Like Will was some implacable dead thing on a dirt-beaten road, entrails and blood unfurling across the way forward.

Nothing more than roadkill.

A minor inconvenience.

Will glared and opened his mouth to demand the same of the boy whose pride hung in the sky like the moon whose light stifles the stars.

But the boy simply stepped around him and disappeared into the back room, the edge of his robe snapping Will’s shins like a reprimand. Will clenched his fists, fighting the urge to bare his teeth across the room where the boy had disappeared.

“Can I help you, dear?” An older woman’s voice sounded next to him, pleasant in a room electrified with tension.

Will jumped and turned apologetically, “Sorry, I. . .” He stared across the room at the curtain into which the boy had disappeared through like a magic act. “I’m looking for Madam Malkin?”

The old woman smiled. “You have an adorable way of speaking, my dear.”

Will twisted his fingers nervously. He had forgotten the dichotomy between his accent and those around him. The way their vowels softened in their mouths and escaped into the air like music. He was aware of his own twang, laughed at even in America. There was not a soul in the South who could escape the incriminating drawl that characterized them to the rest of society as slow and stupid rather than relaxed. Perhaps it was a good thing he hadn’t said anything more to the rude boy. Better to be roadkill than a bumbling rube.

“Yes, ma’am,” He dropped his eyes to the floor. The ticking of his abnormality was a gentle crescendo in the back of his mind, inviting the old woman in. It was exhausting to shove the influence away, and yet it still clung to his mind like sticky cobwebs.

_Poor little boy. Reed-thin and dressed in Muggle clothes that were more soiled than the cellar below. He had a funny accent, like a child whose words hadn’t quite developed yet. He would have a hard time in school. Just as she had. Not the brightest witch around, and always bullied for her lack of skill and understanding._

_She has made something of herself in this shop. Wizards must have robes, and now everyone flocks to her from places all over the world. She has made herself important to the system, vital-_

“I am she. I assume you’re a new Hogwarts student? I can take you into the back. Another young man is being fitted up just now, in fact.”

Another young man. That must be the boy with the maroon eyes.

Will’s stomach dropped.

“I just remembered. I left something outside,” He muttered and spun away for the door.

The blinding light outside burned his eyes for a moment. Madam Malkin’s shop had been so dark inside. Dark jade and grey walls.

Gideon stood from where he had been leaning against the shop wall. “Well, that was mighty quick. But where are your robes?” 

“There are too many students getting fitted right now,” Will stared at Gideon’s scuffed boots. The silver lace of his robes fell across the weathered material.

_Antique against the new. A country American and a rich wizard. A broken boy versus one who had everything._

When he looked up again, his daddy was staring at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

***

“I assume you met the Lecters’ boy—Hannibal,” Gideon announced at the table later that afternoon. They had spent the better part of three hours perusing the shops in Diagon Alley and slowly crossing the items off Will’s school list.

They had bought his textbooks in Flourish and Blotts, a small, dusty space filled to the brim with shelves upon shelves of books as large as paving stones and small as thumbnails; books embossed with silvery runes and gold silken covers, and others bound tightly with chains and padlocks. It had been his favorite store. The air whispered with thousands of voices, each ancient and dusty and full of stories.

At the Apothecary, his father had found him a set of used brass scales for weighing potion ingredients (according to Gideon), as well as a collapsible telescope. His father had been surprisingly bemused by the collection of rare oddities, powders, and pungent herbs filling barrels, jars, and bundles hanging from the ceiling. It eased Will to see his father’s hackles gradually lowering as he adjusted to the strange world around them.

Afterward, they had returned to London to get lunch at a small diner.

Will bit noisily into his hamburger and lowered his eyes from Gideon. Now that they had spent so long in part of the wizarding world, Gideon seemed to glow with newfound confidence. The sight was thrilling to Will’s nerves, buzzing along the seams of his mind whenever he lifted his gaze to meet the wizard’s hazel eyes. But it also meant that he seemed to hold an uncanny ability to see right through Will.

“I only ask,” Gideon continued, “Because I watched him enter Madam Malkin’s shop right after you. He’s a very peculiar boy. I had very nearly forgotten that he is starting school with you. It’s a very wretched thing. What happened to him, that is.”

“ _What_ happened,” Will snapped, and then winced at himself for the outburst.

“Oh, it was terribly shocking. The Lecters, you see, were a very old, very powerful family of wizards. Highly respected, despite how mysterious they were to people. They didn’t prattle around in social circles with the other pure-blood families. It was a rare sight to see them outside their castle grounds, in fact. But they were not a family to be trifled with.

“Hannibal’s father, Adomas, was an incredibly powerful Legilimens and a trusted friend of the Minister. Simonetta Sforza-Lecter, Hannibal’s mother, was a gifted witch. So gifted, she could have given Severus Snape a run for his money in her skill with potionry.

“They were murdered less than two years ago, along with Hannibal’s younger sister, Mischa. In their own home, too. For reasons unknown. And only Hannibal was spared the same fate. Roberus, his uncle, took the boy under his wing and adopted him. He’s been living with the man ever since.”

Will placed his half-eaten hamburger back on the tray and pushed it away. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

How had he not picked up on the leftover trails of agony that should’ve clung to Hannibal like a second skin? In fact, he had felt nothing from the boy he’d sent tumbling to the floor. No remorse or anger. No self pity or self congratulation for something. Those types of emotions that clung to a person’s mind and were shuffled away behind their eyes like a façade.

Hannibal had simply been. . . empty.

Or perhaps extremely good at pretending. 

“A word of advice, my young friend,” Gideon crossed his legs and folded his hands upon the sticky table. “Be careful who you go around making friends with at Hogwarts. Wizards are very finicky. You will find that some will see you on the way to greatness and others might very well destroy you in the process. That boy is not to be trifled with.”

Will fingered the edge of the wax paper nervously. In the back of his mind, a pair of bright maroon eyes flickered. Their depths were as remote and foreboding as a gathering storm.

***

When they returned to Madam Malkin’s shop, the back room was empty of one prideful boy that seemed to be soldered permanently into Will’s thoughts. The only students getting fitted were a pair of nervous-looking first-years that ignored him as he curiously watched Madam Malkin’s roll of measuring tape flit about the room seemingly with a mind of its own.

“Now I just need a wand,” He murmured to Gideon and his father as he deposited the wrapped bundles of clothes into a basket holding the rest of his school things.

Gideon beamed at him. “Ah, Ollivanders is the finest place to get a wand. And an exceedingly special rite of passage for any witch or wizard.”

Will cocked his head curiously as they approached the unassuming storefront. It was gray, shabby, and dark at the very end of Diagon Alley where few people tiptoed across the cobblestones.

**OLIVANDERS:**

_Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C._

The peeling gold letters were barely discernible over the door to the shop. In the window, a single wand lay on a fraying purple cushion.

Will bit his lip and cringed as he opened the door and a bell echoed somewhere in the depths of the dark room. The space was smaller than even Will’s room back home in Biloxi. There was a single bare desk ahead of him, and behind it, thousands of narrow boxes stacked neatly on top of one another and stretching from the ground to the ceiling.

He held his breath in anticipation. The very dust and silence inside seemed primed for something. There was a quiet sense of power clinging to the corners of the room like forgotten cobwebs. Something ancient was inside here, or perhaps _something_ wasn’t entirely accurate. There were so many whispers curling up from the cracks in the floorboards, rising up to twine in his ears and settle in the spaces behind his eyelids.

This place had a history. Emotion bled through the walls like lacerations in skin.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as his head throbbed with the beginnings of a migraine.

“Good afternoon,” a quiet voice sounded from the stacks of boxes. Will flinched in surprise.

An old man stepped out of the shadows. He was short and seemingly unassuming: white, wispy hair and half moon glasses resting precariously on the bridge of his nose. And yet. . . Will drew up short, caught by the man’s eyes.

The silvery depths, even from so far away, swirled with a bottomless energy that belonged only to those people who had seen and experienced so much in their lives. Those eyes promised that Will wouldn’t leave this store unfettered by some profound revelation about himself that he didn’t want to know.

He swallowed noisily. “Hello.”

“I thought I’d be seeing you soon. William Graham.” It was spoken like a statement. Like this man had known Will all his life. “I’m afraid word travels quickly here in our world. It is not often that a Muggle-born from across an ocean is invited to attend Hogwarts School.”

Will dug his nails into his palms.

“And you, Mr. Lecter,” the old man suddenly raised his head, uncanny silver eyes locked on something behind him. Will started but forced himself not to turn around. He hadn’t heard the bell announcing an incoming patron. He had been too busy rooted to the spot by the unassuming wand maker with the strange eyes.

The back of his neck prickled as quiet footsteps trailed toward him. Will could feel the set of maroon eyes burning into him, and the gaze seemed to sear across his spine like the tips of flames.

Will’s cheeks heated as he watched a pair of nice boots stop next to him.

“I see we have two infamous students in our shop. What’s to be done about that?” Will had the uncanny feeling that the old man had stopped talking to them and was now speaking to the line of boxes behind him. The shelves of whispers that seemed to be buzzing now with curiosity and. . . hunger.

“A wand chooses its wizard,” Mr. Ollivander turned away from them and began rifling through the shelves. “They are not merely tools to cast spells with. They are extensions of their masters, able to act of their own will even. Optimum results are best achieved when a wand has a natural affinity for you.”

The old man disappeared into the back of his shop, leaving Will to shift uncomfortably on his feet next to the boy with the maroon eyes. . . _Hannibal._

“Are you following me?” Will snapped suddenly and then blinked, mortified at himself. He lifted his eyes to meet the gaze of a snake.

“Unfortunately this is the only shop in Diagon Alley that sells wands,” Hannibal replied coldly. His maroon eyes glared down at Will, sharp as steel. “Believe me when I say that you are the last person I wanted to see here.”

What was his problem? Had simply bumping into him been enough to offend this boy who seemed to be taking it like a personal slight? No matter the sob story from Hannibal Lecter’s photo album of childhood memories. Those snake-like eyes were as empty of feeling as a corpse’s.

There was no ticking in the back of Will’s mind. No way for the neurons in his brain to shuffle out the hidden secrets in the maroon windows of the other boy’s soul. This was someone who had no use for such exposure. Someone who had boarded up the windows to a ruin of trauma and closed the avenues to his soul.

Gideon had been right. Nothing good would come out of being friends with someone like him.

Before he could retort, Mr. Ollivander was back and brandishing two boxes in the crooks of his arms. They were both slate gray and covered in dust. The edges were worn and slightly curling. Like these boxes had been sitting in the back of Ollivander’s shop since 382 B.C.

“Every Ollivander wand is unique. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons in the cores of each. No two wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. Which is why it is never advisable to use another wizard’s wand. Now, which is your wand arm?”

Will opened his mouth to answer and Hannibal cut in smoothly, “My left.”

His accent shaped the words like music, different from everyone else’s here in London. His words were richer, mesmerizing. Inviting the listener to lean forward as if to taste the words dropping into the open air.

Perhaps Will had been wrong before. These weren’t the eyes of the cobra, but the eyes of the charmer that dares the serpent to strike.

And Will was just a poor kid from the South with no special titles or blood like the boy next to him. He hadn’t been raised by a powerful family with an established reputation in the wizarding world. Will was just a charity case for a school that needed prestige points.

“Ah, yes. Your father was left-handed as well. And your uncle. It seems only yesterday Adomas was in here himself to buy his first wand. Eleven and a half inches long. Beechwood. Pliant. A very finely crafted wand with a taste for artistry, and well-suited for one who had been so wise in his years. Robertus favored an ashwood wand. Ten and three quarters, surprisingly swishy. I remember every wand I have ever sold, Mr. Lecter, Mr. Graham. They are so very unique, it’s impossible to forget them. Right then.”

Ollivander picked up one of the boxes and lifted the top off carefully, as if whatever was inside was preparing to leap out and wreak havoc on the store.

“Now I do pride myself on my ability to match a wand with its wizard. It comes with the territory, you see. Sometimes I can tell from the moment someone enters my store who their match might very well be. Right then, Mr. Lecter. Give this one a try.”

He drew a light brown wand out of the box.

The wand was thin and long, almost delicate-looking as Ollivander held it between his hands. The grip curved slightly and the wood spiralled gracefully from end to the very tip. 

Hannibal took it smoothly. Balanced loosely in his slender fingers, the wand looked entirely dignified and elegant. Will stared hungrily at the sure way Hannibal’s thin fingers curled around the wand. He probably played piano or some string instrument. Drew or painted. Perhaps a combination of all of those artistic pursuits.

“What you’re holding is yew and dragon heartstring. Thirteen and a quarter inches and unyielding flexibility. A very powerful wand indeed. It is said that yew endows its possessor with the power of life and death. It is one of the more aloof wands out there, seeking out distinctive people. Those who stand apart or are unusual in some way. It takes a strong and unyielding mind to control because it will not bend to your will easily. You will have to challenge it for power and it may very well test you up to the end of your days.

“The core comes from the heartstring of a Hebridean Black dragon. A terribly unforgivable creature from the Isles of Scotland. They are a reserved species but are most assuredly devastating when provoked. That wand there will be incredibly vicious. Anyone who comes between you and that wand will find that they regret ever being born.”

Will shivered, watching as Hannibal turned his wand, inspecting the glint of the wood in the light. In fact, in the gloom of the shop, the wand seemed to glow with a hue as sinister and red as Hannibal’s eyes.

“The fact that it hasn’t destroyed you or my shop tells me that it has accepted you. Don’t expect anything flashy from it until you yourself prove your worth in return,” Ollivander’s bushy eyebrows drew down over his silvery eyes. He looked concerned, worried in a way that grated against the confines of Will’s brain.

The pounding in his head intensified, ticking rhythmically. Growing louder and louder as it pressed against his skull, his eyelids, vying for escape.

_Ollivander had always been intrigued by wandlore, so utterly vital to the magic world and just as mysterious. He wanted to unlock the secrets of the wands he made. He prided the thing inside him that had revolutionized wand crafting even among a line of notorious ancestors in the business. It was as easy as breathing to marry wand woods and core substances to the right owner, something that made him so coveted by society. And he liked the narrowed stares, the silent desire, the mystified wonder of everyone who set foot in his shop._

_And yet, he had made so many wands the perpetrators of evil deeds that could only be born from the minds of twisted people with black hearts. Terrible, unforgivable spells that tarnished the cores of these wands that had been crafted with so much passion. Those wizards had betrayed their wands, twisted that power into horrendously empty shells of what they once were and could’ve been._

_It tore at his heart to see them so forsaken. Gold and red sparks of delight traded in for flashes of green and empty, blank eyes staring up at a sky with no light. Wands used to torture and burn and destroy, their cores marred with the sick desire to hurt and-_

“Are you back with us, Mr. Graham?”

Ollivander’s face swam into focus, murky in the depths of his mind. Will blinked rapidly, clearing away the sticky remains of the old man’s mind. It took all his energy to shed those thoughts that clung to him like a coat. His abnormality had been given more free reign today than he could bear.

Will glanced at Hannibal. The boy had cocked his head at him, maroon eyes blank and unreadable as he watched Will struggle with himself.

“You looked rather green for a moment. I was afraid you might faint,” Ollivander continued.

Will’s cheeks burned.

He snapped his gaze away from Hannibal, bemoaning the fact that the boy would now not only think Will was a dumb Southern hick but also a sickly and strange one.

“I find I agree,” Hannibal lowered his wand smoothly. “Perhaps William should leave and then return later when he feels well enough to receive his wand.”

Will blistered at the sound of his full name in Hannibal’s mouth. He hated when people called him William. It sounded so child-like hanging in the air of a shop filled with the presences of so many powerful beings. And in Hannibal’s mouth, it sounded like poison.

“I’m fine,” he snapped into the quiet of the room.

Ollivander blinked curiously and then smiled. “Right then. If you feel you are well enough. To return to the matter at hand. . .” He reached for the other box he had brought in from the back room. Will held his breath as the dusty cover was lifted away.

The old man drew out a dark brown wand, almost black in the gloom of the shop. The grip of it was slightly thicker than the rest of the wand, which stretched out smoothly to the tip. It was simple in style. Nothing fancy. No embellishments.

It was perfect.

“Twelve and a half inches. Hazel wood with phoenix feather. Quite a rare combination for a wand, with a mix of interesting paradoxes. Customarily, these types are paired with unicorn hair and wielded by those wizards whose calm states of mind best reflect the wands’ interests: serenity. Yours, however, is taken from a creature so independent and detached from the rest of the world that I am afraid yours will be rather quick to test your mind.

“Perhaps this wand has recognized these same traits in you. I gift hazel wands of this unique power to those I feel are best suited to understand the wands’ complexity and empathy.

“In my experience, I have found that their wielders are those with natural and heightened senses of perception. They are strong in spirit and strong in mind. Hazel wands, being especially sensitive, are prone to reflecting their owners’ emotional states. Don’t let that fool you, though. It is capable of performing outstanding magic. And paired with a phoenix core. . . why, you will find that it is unmatched in its magical range. This wand will follow you unhesitatingly into death. So in tune were some wizards of old with their hazel wands, in fact, that they could practice exclusively wandless magic.

“I am very interested to know what you will be able to do with this wand. Tame it, earn its allegiance and respect, and you will find that its loyalty to you will follow you to your grave.”

Ollivander held the wand out to him.

It felt like holding a small breath of relief, if that kind of catharsis could have a tangible feeling.

Warmth settled in his ribs, wrapping around his aching chest with a weight that bespoke certainty. This was _right_. Somehow, this weight in his hand, resting against his palm and curled loosely in his fingers, was right.

And here was something he had never had before: an object made entirely for him. This wand had been made exclusively for him. Before anyone had ever known who it would belong to. And it belonged to Will Graham. It had always belonged to him.

Will Graham from the ramshackle house on the edge of Biloxi’s boat yards. Will Graham from New Orleans, dipping his toes in the water after a hurricane and shivering at the chill of water pulled from the deep ocean. Will Graham swinging his legs over the dock with a mason jar full of sweet tea, pretending the amber liquid inside was the same burning stuff in his daddy’s drink—the kind that brought out Beau’s stories.

Will Graham who had been raised by his daddy to be perceptive and cautious of the world and all its empty promises. Pulled away from the banks of Louisiana creeks and bayous with a stern warning that there were eyes settled on the surface of the water and teeth underneath the ripples of black. Given biting lectures on the porch as Beau Graham, after a particularly nasty brawl, cleaned up his own swollen black eye in the reflection of his beer bottle and made Will promise to fight his lot in life with every intention to walk away a winning man.

Will Graham, with wizard blood in his veins and an excess of emotion swirling in his head. Too afraid to look deep into another’s mind and lose what remained of himself to the ocean of another’s desperation.

Here was something that felt like the other half of his soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'll try to post every other day during the week.


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